Facebook users swarmed by porn and gore images

Many Facebook users are being swarmed today by newsfeeds showing sexually explicit and/or violent images, some featuring doctored photos of Justin Bieber and other celebrities in demeaning poses.

"Recently, we experienced a coordinated spam attack that exploited a browser vulnerability," Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes, said at 3:13 p.m. ET. "Our efforts have drastically limited the damage caused by this attack, and we are now in the process of investigating to identify those responsible."

Noyes says users were "tricked into pasting and executing malicious javascript in their browser URL bar, causing them to unknowingly share this offensive content."

He says Facebook has "put in place back-end measures to reduce the rate of these attacks and will continue to iterate on our defenses to find new ways to protect people."

Some users expressed their annoyance via Twitter, with a few indicating they were deactivating their accounts, says Sophos senior security analyst Graham Cluley.

Speculation that the hackers associated with the renowned hacktivist group, Anonymous, were behind the attack circulated on gossip site Gawker.

That's not surprising, since back in August, some Anonymous members issued a "Kill Facebook" decree scheduled to unfold in early November. That planned attack is being referred to as the Fawkes virus in honor of the anti-hero Guy Fawkes in the post-apocalyptic thriller V for Vendetta. Anonymous even produced a video, shown below, about the threatened Fawkes virus attack on Facebook.

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